Vatican II, the Right to Information, and Net Neutrality

May 16, 2017

Back in March the New York Times reported that the Trump administration
announced its intention to “jettison the Obama administration’s net neutrality
rules, which were intended to safeguard free expression online.” [1]
“The net neutrality rules,” as the Times explained, “approved by the Federal
Communications Commission in 2015, aimed to preserve the open internet and
ensure that it could not be divided into pay-to-play fast lanes for web and
media companies that can afford it and slow lanes for everyone else.”

Why is this important?

One way to understand the argument for net neutrality is to
think of the internet like electricity. Your electric company sells you
electricity, you buy it, and that’s the end of the transaction. The electric
company doesn’t tell you how you can use the electricity. It doesn’t say that
you can only power a refrigerator made by a company that it has a special
relationship with. It doesn’t provide less power for other refrigerators, or
none. The use of the electricity sold you is left entirely in your discretion. [2]
In the same way, your internet service provider (ISP) shouldn’t be permitted to
reduce or prohibit your access to anything on the internet. It should not be
allowed, the argument goes, “’to restrict the best access or to pick winners
and losers in the online marketplace for services and ideas….’” The “Internet
should be a reliable way to access content produced by anyone, regardless of
whether they have any special business arrangement with the utility.”

But in early April, in apparent furtherance of the Trump
administration’s goals, “Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai
reportedly met with broadband industry lobby groups…to discuss his plans for
eliminating net neutrality rules.” [3]
The idea he presented was that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would
no longer enforce net neutrality rules, while the ISPs would, somehow, agree to
voluntarily maintain an open internet. Jurisdiction over the question would
then pass to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) which would enforce these
pledges “to abide by net neutrality principles such as no blocking or paid
prioritization of Internet traffic” on deceptive or unfair trade practices
grounds. That sounds perfectly sensible, until it is remembered that ISPs would
be asked to voluntarily subject themselves to these requirements. And why would
they do that if they determined they could make more money through either
blocking some internet traffic or setting up paid-for prioritization, or both?

The reason why Mr. Pai wants to do this thing is because, he
claims, “existing regulations are hurting the internet. He said that the 12
largest internet service providers reduced investment by 5.6 percent between
2014 and 2016 because the net neutrality rules were too onerous.” [4]
Unsurprisingly, there are those who say that “he is cherry-picking data to make
his case. Free Press, a public-interest group that supports net neutrality,
found that total investment by publicly traded broadband companies increased
5.3 percent between 2013-14 and 2015-16.” But, really, all of this “misses the
bigger point,” as a New York Times article from April points out.

“Net neutrality is meant to benefit the internet and the
economy broadly, not just the broadband industry. That means the commission
ought to consider the impact the regulations have on consumers and businesses.
In particular, the commission has a responsibility to protect people with few
or no choices; most Americans have access to just one or two companies for
residential service and just four big operators for wireless.”

Abolishing net neutrality would place ISPs in the position
of controlling what their customers have access to. That would run counter to
the social utility of having ISPs in the first place. We need ISPs in order to
open up to us the world of information provided by the internet, and allowing
them to restrict that information in any way, and for any reason, would defeat
their essential purpose. It would be allowing them to deliberately make the
service they provide their customers worse. Of course, the fact that an
uncompetitive circumstance prevails in the relevant market is what allows ISPs
to consider doing such a thing to begin with.

But there is something even more pernicious at hand. The
ability to block internet traffic, or slow it down, while it certainly will
give an unfair advantage to companies that are able to pay the new tolls
imposed by the ISPs, will also give ISPs the ability to regulate for political
content. Moreover, it will give ISPs the power to censor facts that are
inconvenient to certain political points of view. Although the internet can be
criticized as being a source of misrepresentations, it has also made a wider
array of information available to us than ever before. If that information
becomes subject to corporate control, what is perhaps the chief benefit of the
internet will disappear from American life.

In Inter Mirifica,
Vatican II’s “Decree on the Media of Social Communications,” the Church says
this:

“Among the wonderful technological discoveries which men of talent, especially
in the present era, have made with God’s help, the Church welcomes and promotes
with special interest those which have a most direct relation to men’s minds
and which have uncovered new avenues of communicating most readily news, views
and teachings of every sort.” (Sec. 1) [5]

Of course, the internet had not been invented at the time of
the Second Vatican Council. Still, it is plain from this wording that the
Church looks favorably on new means of communicating important information, which
the internet most certainly is. The reason why the Church would have this
attitude is because of the right of people to information.

“The prompt publication of affairs and events provides every
individual with a fuller, continuing acquaintance with them, and thus all can
contribute more effectively to the common good and more readily promote and
advance the welfare of the entire civil society. Therefore, in society men have
a right to information, in accord with the circumstances in each case, about matters
concerning individuals or the community.” (Sec. 5)

Because of that right, public authorities have certain
duties.

“The public authority, in these matters, is bound by special
responsibilities in view of the common good, to which these media are ordered.
The same authority has, in virtue of its office, the duty of protecting and
safeguarding true and just freedom of information, a freedom that is totally
necessary for the welfare of contemporary society, especially when it is a
question of freedom of the press. It ought also to encourage spiritual values,
culture and the fine arts and guarantee the rights of those who wish to use the
media.” (Sec. 12)

It seems apparent, then, that governmental authorities have
an obligation to protect the free flow of information over the internet. But
that cannot be accomplished by allowing private ISPs to control the content
that their customers are able to view or view well. It is not their purpose for
existence, and the effect of such activity can only be detrimental to that
purpose. Net neutrality should by all means be retained and preserved.